The field of the invention is water softening, and the invention relates more particularly to the in situ regeneration of ion exchange resin with a brine solution.
In the typical home water softening system, regeneration is carried out periodically by circulating a dilute brine solution through the ion exchange resin, after which water is passed through the resin to purge the brine from the resin. A typical water softening cycle utilizes 85 gallons of water and 15 pounds of salt.
The basic water softening process has been known for many years when zeolite was used for this purpose. Later, ion exchange resins were found to be more efficient. The water softening process is discussed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 1,450,985, 3,154,484 and 4,314,905. All of these processes, however, use more water and salt than is necessary.